There are many instances in which designers might need to view how the design that they’ve created looks on an actual product. If not to verify how great it looks, another reason might be that you need to create a realistic impression of your design to share on social media for your audience or client. Essentially, mockups are a crucial part of the process of bringing your designs to life.

There are a number of ways to create these realistic representations of your product, either creating them yourself or using an online mock-up creator. Xquissive takes a look at a few options to help you along the way.

What are the best websites to buy Mockups and Templates?

Do it yourself

If you are familiar with Photoshop, then be sure to download either the free or paid mock-ups suitable for a number of design templates. The mock-ups are super easy to use, as you replace the design in the mock-up with that of your own design. The process is free of complicated tweaking and produces incredible results! We’ve put together a list of a few excellent resources that have a wide selection of premium quality mock-ups:

Envato Elements

Envato Elements is the new kid on the block in this article. With over 86,000 templates and mockups they offer almost 30,000 items more than the alternative websites.

The website looks clean, is well categorized and is user-friendly.

You can’t buy the items individually, but you pay € 14.50 p/m. If you only need one template or mockup in a while, then you can better check out one of the alternatives. However, if you use design elements like this a lot then it’s well worth the money, because you do not only get access to the graphic templates. You also get access to 50M+ additional stock photos and millions of other digital assets, like stock video, video templates, music, sound effects, graphic elements, presentation templates, fonts and much, much more. Check out Envato Elements for more information.

Creative Market

Creative Market has almost doubled the amount of available mock-ups and templates to 56,000 since last year. The website got a good facelift and the products are now well sorted out in categories, so you can easily find the product you need.

There are templates for Business Cards, Logos, Products, Social Media, Websites, Canva and so on. Most of the available templates and mockups are of an excellent quality, due to the high product standards.

With a price range starting at only $2, Creative Market is a good place to start your search for the perfect template or mockup!

GraphicRiver

With almost 50,000 mock-ups available, GraphicRiver is definitely worth checking out. They also gave the website a facelift and improved the user experience on the site. The categories are good, but they are less detailed compared to Creative Market. However, you can find anything you need in a breeze if you use the search function.

The pricing also starts at $2, so GraphicRiver is well worth checking out.

DesignBundles

Last time we wrote that DesignBundles was relatively smaller than Creative Market, but that has changed a lot. They have grown hard and that’s no wonder Like the other two companies they now offer over 50,000 templates and mockups.

They’ve structured the templates categories really well, so it’s very easy to find what you need. Pricing starts as low as $1.50, so make sure to pay DesignBundles a visit.

TheHungryJPEG

Growing at a rapid pace, TheHungryJPEG currently offers over a few thousand mock-ups. With the cheapest prices, starting at $1.00, make sure to visit TheHungryJPEG and check out their collection.

Vexels

Vexels is an incredible resource for anyone looking for design stock. You can find tons of ready-made graphics for every purpose and they have some great tools online to help you like the T-shirt maker, the Mockup Generator, or the Logo Maker. They have a great section of mockups with almost 3000 mockups in PSD format for almost any use. Make sure to checkout the mockup section at Vexels.

(Online) Mockup Generators

As an alternative you can also use special designed mock-up generators. The main advantage is that they are super easy and that you have hundreds of templates to scroll through.

Placeit

At the moment, Placeit is one of the most complete online mock-up generators available. They offer thousands of templates, covering many different categories. When you are just starting out, you can create mock-ups for free! Alternatively, high quality mock-ups can be bought individually as image packs or via a subscription. Besides images, you can also get video mockups! So for example you can have a video with a model wearing a t-shirt with your design! How cool is that!

You can also find templates for devices, like phones, tablets, smartwatches, laptops and so on. Templates are organized by brand too, so if you’re looking for a mock-up template of a Galaxy S or the latest iPhone, they’ve got you covered!

You can also find mock-ups in many other categories, like t-shirts, hoodies, books, brochures and so on. In addition to this, they also offer great design templates for logos, book covers and social media banners.

One of the most exciting features of Placeit is that you can create mock-up videos too! This feature creates a simulation of a person in an environment showcasing your design.

The process of creating a mock-up isn’t much more complicated than uploading the picture from your device to Placeit!

Essentially, you’re able to place your design on this shirt…  All in one click!

Check out Placeit now and create stunning mock-up images or videos.

SmartMockups

In contrast, Smartmockups is a little different. Smartmockups is a downloadable application for either Windows or the Mac. After paying a one-time fee you’ll be able to use the app forever, including all future updates. So, no hidden fees, no subscription. Smartmockups gives you a collection of 600+ handcrafted scenes that you can use.

Before you decide to make the purchase you can download a free trial to try it out. The only limitation in the trial version is that the images are generated with a watermark.

Visit Smartmockups and download the free trial version.